Your next job is to max out your retirement accounts. You should do this
(with one exception) after all your debts are paid off.

The one exception is when you have a 401k plan with your employer and
your employer will match your contributions. This is free money,
which is always a good thing.

In my case, my employer does not do contribution matching (damn!), so I
need to choose between a standard IRA and a Roth IRA.

I found this online calculator on
bankrate.com
that I really like. (Unfortunately, it requires Java, so it doesn't work
in Chrome. It does work in Firefox or Safari.)

The main determinant as to which type of retirement account you'll do
better with is your tax rate. If your tax rate is higher now and will be
significantly lower when you retire, a standard IRA makes more sense. If
your tax rate will be the same or higher when you retire, a Roth IRA
makes more sense.

The idea is that with a traditional IRA, you do not pay taxes on the
money you put into the account (your contributions are tax deductible).
You do pay taxes when you take the money out (in your retirement) but
since you're making less money then, you should come out ahead.

With a Roth IRA, your contributions are not deductible (do not reduce
your taxes) but you pay no taxes when you take the money out in your
retirement.

For me, a Roth IRA made the most sense. There's a few things I really
like about them:

When you withdraw from it, you pay
no taxes or fees on the investment or on the gains from your
investment.

You can withdraw the principal (your contributions) at any time with
no fees. Only the investment gains need to stay in the account until
you retire. This gives you additional flexibility that I really
value.

Whichever one you choose, pick one and max it out to the best of your
ability. Only have investments in a non-retirement account if you've
maxed out your contributions, or if you plan to use the principal and
interest before retirement.

What are we doing in the Schofield family? Because we're still paying
off
debt
and my employer doesn't match, we're not contributing to any retirement
account. (I was doing an automatic transfer to a conventional IRA each
month in my pre-financial-competence days, but I've stopped that until
we are debt-free.)